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We Have All Forgotten What We Really Are. All That We Call Common Sense And Rationality And Practicality And Positivism Only Means That For Certain Dead Levels Of Our Life We Forget That We Have Forgotten. All That We Call Spirit And Art And Ecstasy Only Means That For One Awful Instant We Remember That We Forget.
-Gilbert K. Chesterton
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We Have All Forgotten

Gilbert K. Chesterton
We Have All Forgotten What We Really Are. All That We Call Common Sense And Rationality And Practicality And Positivism Only Means That For Certain Dead Levels Of Our Life We Forget That We Have Forgotten. All That We Call Spirit And Art And Ecstasy Only Means That For One Awful Instant We Remember That We Forget.
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Art
Mean
Common Sense
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I Have Argued With Him On Almost Every Subject In The World, And We Have Always Been On Opposite Sides, Without Affectation Or Animosity... It Is Necessary To Disagree With Him As Much As I Do, In Order To Admire Him As I Do; And I Am Proud Of Him As A Foe Even More Than As A Friend.
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I Did Try To Found A Little Heresy Of My Own; And When I Had Put The Last Touches To It, I Discovered That It Was Orthodoxy.
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The Original Quality In Any Man Of Imagination Is Imagery.
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There Is But An Inch Of Difference Between A Cushioned Chamber And A Padded Cell.
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Do Not Look At The Faces In The Illustrated Papers. Look At The Faces In The Street.
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I Will Not Call It My Philosophy; For I Did Not Make It. God And Humanity Made It; And It Made Me.
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A Radical Generally Meant A Man Who Thought He Could Somehow Pull Up The Root Without Affecting The Flower. A Conservative Generally Meant A Man Who Wanted To Conserve Everything Except His Own Reason For Conserving Anything.
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I Would Maintain That Thanks Are The Highest Form Of Thought; And That Gratitude Is Happiness Doubled By Wonder.
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Imagination Does Not Breed Insanity. Exactly What Does Breed Insanity Is Reason. Poets Do Not Go Mad, But Chess Players Do.
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An Event Is Not Any More Intrinsically Intelligible Or Unintelligible Because Of The Pace At Which It Moves. For A Man Who Does Not Believe In A Miracle, A Slow Miracle Would Be Just As Incredible As A Swift One. The Greek Witch May Have Turned Sailors To Swine With A Stroke Of The Wand. But To See A Naval Gentleman Of Our Acquaintance Looking A Little More Like A Pig Every Day, Till He Ended With Four Trotters And A Curly Tail, Would Not Be Any More Soothing. It Might Be Rather More Creepy And Uncanny.
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Some Men Never Feel Small, But These Are The Few Men Who Are.
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An Inconvenience Is An Adventure Wrongly Considered.
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In Dealing With The Arrogant Asserter Of Doubt, It Is Not The Right Method To Tell Him To Stop Doubting. It Is Rather The Right Method To Tell Him To Go On Doubting, To Doubt A Little More, To Doubt Every Day Newer And Wilder Things In The Universe, Until At Last, By Some Strange Enlightenment, He May Begin To Doubt Himself.
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All Conservatism Is Based Upon The Idea That If You Leave Things Alone You Leave Them As They Are. But You Do Not. If You Leave A Thing Alone You Leave It To A Torrent Of Change.
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The Old Assumption Of The Approximate Impossibility Of War Really Rested On A Similar Assumption About The Impossibility Of Evil-and Especially Of Evil In High Places.
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One Of The Deepest And Strangest Of All Human Moods Is The Mood Which Will Suddenly Strike Us Perhaps In A Garden At Night, Or Deep In Sloping Meadows, The Feeling That Every Flower And Leaf Has Just Uttered Something Stupendously Direct And Important, And That We Have By A Prodigy Of Imbecility Not Heard Or Understood It. There Is A Certain Poetic Value, And That A Genuine One, In This Sense Of Having Missed The Full Meaning Of Things. There Is Beauty, Not Only In Wisdom, But In This Dazed And Dramatic Ignorance.
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A Fairly Clear Line Separated Advertisement From Art. ... The First Effect Of The Triumph Of The Capitalist (if We Allow Him To Triumph) Will Be That That Line Of Demarcation Will Entirely Disappear. There Will Be No Art That Might Not Just As Well Be Advertisement.
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We Lose Our Bearings Entirely By Speaking Of The 'lower Classes' When We Mean Humanity Minus Ourselves.
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Thinking Means Connecting Things, And Stops If They Cannot Be Connected.
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It Was The People Who Did Not Care Who Filled The World With Fire And Oppression. It Was The Hands Of The Indifferent That Lit The Faggots; It Was The Hands Of The Indifferent That Turned The Rack.
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It Isn't That They Can't See The Solution. It Is That They Can't See The Problem.
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For Tommy, On That Hot And Empty Afternoon, Was In A State Of Mind In Which Grown-up People Go Away And Write Books About Their Whole World, And Stories About What It Is Like To Be Married, And Plays About The Important Problems Of Modern Times. Tommy, Being Only Ten Years Old, Was Not Able To Do Harm On This Large And Handsome Scale.
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Men
The Christian Is Quite Free To Believe That There Is A Considerable Amount Of Settled Order And Inevitable Development In The Universe. But The Materialist Is Not Allowed To Admit Into His Spotless Machine The Slightest Speck Of Spiritualism Or Miracle.
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From The Standpoint Of Any Sane Person, The Present Problem Of Capitalist Concentration Is Not Only A Question Of Law, But Of Criminal Law, Not To Mention Criminal Lunacy.
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The Best Kind Of Giving Is Thanksgiving.
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A Great Deal Of Contemporary Criticism Reads To Me Like A Man Saying, 'of Course I Do Not Like Green Cheese. I Am Very Fond Of Brown Sherry.
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Before The Roman Came To Rye Or Out To Severn Strode, / The Rolling English Drunkard Made The Rolling English Road.
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Hope Is The Power Of Being Cheerful In Circumstances Which We Know To Be Desperate.
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Just The Other Day In The Underground I Enjoyed The Pleasure Of Offering My Seat To Three Ladies.
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Offering
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There Have Been Household Gods And Household Saints And Household Fairies. I Am Not Sure That There Have Yet Been Any Factory Gods Or Factory Saints Or Factory Fairies. I May Be Wrong, As I Am No Commericial Expert, But I Have Not Heard Of Them As Yet.
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May
I Think The Oddest Thing About The Advanced People Is That, While They Are Always Talking About Things As Problems, They Have Hardly Any Notion Of What A Real Problem Is.
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But I Was Frightfully Fond Of The Universe And Wanted To Address It By A Diminutive. I Often Did So; And It Never Seemed To Mind.
Mind
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Wanted
Fallacies Do Not Cease To Be Fallacies Because They Become Fashions.
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A Madman Is Not Someone Who Has Lost His Reason But Someone Who Has Lost Everything But His Reason
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Courage Is Almost A Contradiction In Terms. It Means A Strong Desire To Live Taking The Form Of Readiness To Die.
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Literary Men Are Being Employed To Praise A Big Business Man Personally, As Men Used To Praise A King. They Not Only Find Political Reasons For The Commercial Schemes That They Have Done For Some Time Past They Also Find Moral Defences For The Commercial Schemers... I Do Resent The Whole Age Of Patronage Being Revived Under Such Absurd Patrons; And All Poets Becoming Court Poets, Under Kings That Have Taken No Oath.
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Past
Education Is The Period During Which You Are Being Instructed By Somebody You Do Not Know, About Something You Do Not Want To Know.
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The Aim Of Good Prose Words Is To Mean What They Say. The Aim Of Good Poetical Words Is To Mean What They Do Not Say.
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Only Men To Whom The Family Is Sacred Will Ever Have A Standard Or A Status By Which To Criticize The State. They Alone Can Appeal To Something More Holy Than The Gods Of The City.
Family
Men
Cities
Literature Is A Luxury; Fiction Is A Necessity.
Inspirational
Book
Reading
There Is A Road From The Eye To The Heart That Does Not Go Through The Intellect. Men Do Not Quarrel About The Meaning Of Sunsets; They Never Dispute That The Hawthorn Says The Best And Wittiest Thing About The Spring.
Spring
Sunset
Eye
A Man Imagines A Happy Marriage As A Marriage Of Love; Even If He Makes Fun Of Marriages That Are Without Love, Or Feels Sorry For Lovers Who Are Without Marriage.
Love
Fun
Sorry
Impartiality Is A Pompous Name For Indifference, Which Is An Elegant Name For Ignorance.
Wisdom
Fun
Ignorance
In The Fairy Tale, An Incomprehensible Happiness Rests Upon An Incomprehensible Condition. A Box Is Opened And All Evils Fly Out. A Word Is Forgotten And Cities Perish. A Lamp Is Lit And Love Flies Away. An Apple Is Eaten And The Hope Of God Is Gone.
Apples
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Evil
I Owe My Success To Having Listened Respectfully To The Very Best Advice, And Then Going Away And Doing The Exact Opposite.
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Well, If I Am Not Drunk, I Am Mad," Replied Syme With Perfect Calm; "but I Trust I Can Behave Like A Gentleman In Either Condition.
Drunk
Mad
Perfect
True Contentment Is A Thing As Active As Agriculture. It Is The Power Of Getting Out Of Any Situation All That There Is In It. It Is Arduous And It Is Rare.
Happiness
Power
Agriculture
If The Devil Tells You Something Is Too Fearful To Look At, Look At It. If He Says Something Is Too Terrible To Hear, Hear It. If You Think Some Truth Unbearable, Bear It.
Thinking
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Looks
I Am Concerned With A Certain Way Of Looking At Life, Which Was Created In Me By The Fairy Tales, But Has Since Been Meekly Ratified By The Mere Facts.
Way
Facts
Fairy Tale
You Can Free Things From Alien Or Accidental Laws, But Not From The Laws Of Their Own Nature. You May, If You Like, Free A Tiger From His Bars; But Do Not Free Him From His Stripes.
Law
Stripes
May
A Woman Uses Her Intelligence To Find Reasons To Support Her Intuition.
Support
Intelligence
Intuition
A Sober Man May Become A Drunkard Through Being A Coward. A Brave Man May Become A Coward Through Being A Drunkard.
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Brave
Coward
The Noble Temptation To See Too Much In Everything.
Temptation
Noble
Too Much
There Are Two Kinds Of Paradoxes. They Are Not So Much The Good And The Bad, Nor Even The True And The False. Rather They Are The Fruitful And The Barren; The Paradoxes Which Produce Life And The Paradoxes That Merely Announce Death. Nearly All Modern Paradoxes Merely Announce Death.
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Friendship
Two
Individuality
Christmas Is Built Upon A Beautiful And Intentional Paradox; That The Birth Of The Homeless Should Be Celebrated In Every Home.
Christmas
Beautiful
Home
The Power Which Makes A Man Able To Entertain A Good Impulse Is The Same As That Which Enables Him To Make A Good Gun; It Is Imagination.
Men
Gun
Power
A Good Civilisation Spreads Over Us Freely Like A Tree, Varying And Yielding Because It Is Alive. A Bad Civilisation Stands Up And Sticks Out Above Us Like An Umbrella-artificial, Mathematical In Shape; Not Merely Universal, But Uniform.
Civilization
Tree
Alive
The Aim Of Life Is Appreciation; There Is No Sense In Not Appreciating Things; And There Is No Sense In Having More Of Them If You Have Less Appreciation Of Them.
Love
Appreciation
Gratitude
It Is Much Easier To Write A Good Times Leading Article Than A Good Joke In Punch.
Writing
Good Times
Easier
You Can Only Find Truth With Logic If You Have Already Found Truth Without It.
Spiritual
Witty
Truth
Evil Comes At Leisure Like The Disease. Good Comes In A Hurry Like The Doctor.
Doctors
Evil
Disease
If A Man Does Not Talk To Himself, It Is Because He Is Not Worth Talking To.
Men
Talking
Doe
If I Did Not Believe In God, I Should Still Want My Doctor, My Lawyer And My Banker To Do So.
Atheist
Believe
Doctors
Every Man Is Important If He Loses His Life;and Every Man Is Funny If He Loses His Hat And Has To Run After It.
Running
Men
Important
It Is The Simple Truth That Man Does Differ From The Brutes In Kind And Not In Degree; And The Proof Of It Is Here; That It Sounds Like A Truism To Say That The Most Primitive Man Drew A Picture Of A Monkey And That It Sounds Like A Joke To Say That The Most Intelligent Monkey Drew A Picture Of A Man. Something Of Division And Disproportion Has Appeared; And It Is Unique. Art Is The Signature Of Man.
Art
Intelligent
Unique
We Ought To Be Interested In That Darkest And Most Real Part Of A Man In Which Dwell Not The Vices That He Does Not Display, But The Virtues That He Cannot.
Real
Men
Vices
The Function Of The Imagination Is Not To Make Strange Things Settled, So Much As To Make Settled Things Strange.
Imagination
Strange
Function
Eugenics Asserts That All Men Must Be So Stupid That They Cannot Manage Their Own Affairs; And Also So Clever That They Can Manage Each Other's.
Clever
Stupid
Men
Only Friendliness Produces Friendship. And We Must Look Far Deeper Into The Soul Of Man For The Thing That Produces Friendliness.
Friendship
Men
Soul
We All Feel The Riddle Of The Earth Without Anyone To Point It Out. The Mystery Of Life Is The Plainest Part Of It. The Clouds And Curtains Of Darkness, The Confounding Vapors, These Are The Daily Weather Of This World.
Clouds
Weather
Darkness
If Men Will Not Be Governed By The Ten Commandments, They Shall Be Governed By The Ten Thousand Commandments
Men
Religion
Thousand
Spring Never Is Spring Unless It Comes Too Soon.
Nature
Spring
Environment
Indeed The Book Of Job Avowedly Only Answers Mystery With Mystery. Job Is Comforted With Riddles; But He Is Comforted. Herein Is Indeed A Type, In The Sense Of A Prophecy, Of Things Speaking With Authority. For When He Who Doubts Can Only Say, ‘i Do Not Understand,’ It Is True That He Who Knows Can Only Reply Or Repeat ‘you Do Not Understand.’ And Under That Rebuke There Is Always A Sudden Hope In The Heart; And The Sense Of Something That Would Be Worth Understanding.
Jobs
Book
Heart
Every Politician Is Emphatically A Promising Politician.
Politician
The Man Who Kills A Man Kills A Man. The Man Who Kills Himself Kills All Men. As Far As He Is Concerned, He Wipes Out The World.
Suicide
Suicidal
Men
No Animal Ever Invented Anything As Bad As Drunkenness - Or So Good As Drink.
Drinking
Beer
Animal
A Building Is Akin To Dogma; It Is Insolent, Like Dogma. Whether Or No It Is Permanent, It Claims Permanence, Like A Dogma. People Ask Why We Have No Typical Architecture Of The Modern World, Like Impressionism In Painting. Surely It Is Obviously Because We Have Not Enough Dogmas; We Cannot Bear To See Anything In The Sky That Is Solid And Enduring, Anything In The Sky That Does Not Change Like The Clouds Of The Sky.
Clouds
Sky
People
To Desire Money Is Much Nobler Than To Desire Success. Desiring Money May Mean Desiring To Return To Your Country, Or Marry The Woman You Love, Or Ransom Your Father From Brigands. But Desiring Success Must Mean That You Take An Abstract Pleasure In The Unbrotherly Act Of Distancing And Disgracing Other Men.
Country
Money
Father
The Perplexity Of Life Arises From There Being Too Many Interesting Things In It For Us To Be Interested Properly In Any Of Them.
Science
Interesting
Decision
I Am Myself So Exceedingly Nordic, As Far As Physical Constitution Is Concerned, That I Can Enjoy Almost Any Weather Except What Is Called Glorious Weather. At The End Of A Few Days, I Am Left Wondering How The Men Of The Mediterranean Ever Managed To Do Almost All The Most Active And Astonishing Things That Have Been Done.
Men
Weather
Done
The English Are No Nearer Than They Were A Hundred Years Ago To Knowing What Jefferson Really Meant When He Said That God Had Created All Men Equal.
Equality
Men
Knowing
Truth, Of Course, Must Of Necessity Be Stranger Than Fiction, For We Have Made Fiction To Suit Ourselves.
Truth
Fiction
Suits
Oscar Wilde Said That Sunsets Were Not Valued Because We Could Not Pay For Sunsets. But Oscar Wilde Was Wrong; We Can Pay For Sunsets. We Can Pay For Them By Not Being Oscar Wilde.
Sunset
Oscars
Pay
"the Universe Repeats Itself, With The Possible Exception Of History." Of All Earthly Studies History Is The Only One That Does Not Repeat Itself. ... Astronomy Repeats Itself; Botany Repeats Itself; Trigonometry Repeats Itself; Mechanics Repeats Itself; Compound Long Division Repeats Itself. Every Sum If Worked Out In The Same Way At Any Time Will Bring Out The Same Answer. ... A Great Many Moderns Say That History Is A Science; If So It Occupies A Solitary And Splendid Elevation Among The Sciences; It Is The Only Science The Conclusions Of Which Are Always Wrong.
Science
Long
History
Only Poor Men Get Hanged.
Men
Poor
Poor Man
The Big Corporation Is Not In The Least Remarkable For Efficiency; It Is Only Too Big To Be Blamed For Its Inefficiency.
Corporations
Efficiency
Bigs
There Is Only One Thing That Stands In Our Midst, Attenuated And Threatened, But Enthroned In Some Power Like A Ghost Of The Middle Ages: The Trade Unions.
Age
Unions
Ghost
The Whole Pleasure Of Marriage Is That It Is A Perpetual Crisis.
Love
Pleasure
Crisis
There Is No Logical Connection Between Flying And Laying Eggs.
Eggs
Flying
Connections
There Nearly Always Is A Method In Madness.
Madness
Method
There Is No Such Thing On Earth As An Uninteresting Subject; The Only Thing That Can Exist Is An Uninterested Person. Nothing Is More Keenly Required Than A Defence Of Bores. When Byron Divided Humanity Into The Bores And Bored, He Omitted To Notice That The Higher Qualities Exist Entirely In The Bores, The Lower Qualities In The Bored, Among Whom He Counted Himself. The Bore, By His Starry Enthusiasm, His Solemn Happiness, May, In Some Sense, Have Proved Himself Poetical. The Bored Has Certainly Proved Himself Prosaic.
Boredom
Humanity
Quality
Meaninglessness Does Not Come From Being Weary Of Pain. Meaninglessness Comes From Being Weary Of Pleasure.
Pain
Doe
Pleasure
A Cosmic Philosophy Is Not Constructed To Fit A Man; A Cosmic Philosophy Is Constructed To Fit A Cosmos. A Man Can No More Possess A Private Religion Than He Can Possess A Private Sun And Moon.
Philosophy
Moon
Men
It Is Hard To Make Government Representative When It Is Also Remote.
Government
Hard
Representatives
Business, Especially Big Business, Is Now Organized Like An Army. It Is, As Some Would Say, A Sort Of Mild Militarism Without Bloodshed; As I Say, A Militarism Without The Military Virtues.
Business
Military
Army
In The End It Will Not Matter To Us Whether We Wrote Well Or Ill; Whether We Fought With Flails Or Reeds. It Will Matter To Us Greatly On What Side We Fought.
Matter
Sides
Reeds
But There Is In Everything A Reasonable Division Of Labour. I Have Written The Book, And Nothing On Earth Would Induce Me To Read It.
Book
Division
Earth
Suppose, My Dear Chadd, Suppose It Is We Who Are The Idiots Because We Are Not Afraid Of Devils In The Dark?
Dark
Devil
Idiot
Experience Which Was Once Claimed By The Aged Is Now Claimed Exclusively By The Young.
Literature
Young
There Is A Corollary To The Conception Of Being Too Proud To Fight. It Is That The Humble Have To Do Most Of The Fighting.
Humble
Fighting
Proud
It's The First Effect Of Not Believing In God That You Lose Your Common Sense.
Believe
Common Sense
Firsts
Is Ditchwater Dull? Naturalists With Microscopes Have Told Me That It Teems With Quiet Fun.
Fun
Vision
Dull
Passion Makes Every Detail Important.
Passion
Important
Details
Life Is Serious All The Time, But Living Cannot Be. You May Have All The Solemnity You Wish In Your Neckties, But In Anything Important (such As Sex, Death, And Religion), You Must Have Mirth Or You Will Have Madness.
Sex
Wish
Important
Modern Science Is Necessarily A Double-edged Tool, A Tool That Cuts Both Ways. ... There Is No Doubt That A Zeppelin Is A Wonderful Thing; But That Did Not Prevent It From Becoming A Horrible Thing.
Cutting
Science
Doubt
At The Back Of Our Brains Is A Blaze Of Astonishment At Our Own Existence. The Object Of The Artistic And Spiritual Life Is To Dig For This Sunrise Of Wonder.
Spiritual
Art
Brain
Boyhood Is A Most Complex And Incomprehensible Thing. Even When One Has Been Through It, One Does Not Understand What It Was. A Man Can Never Quite Understand A Boy, Even When He Has Been The Boy.
Son
Men
Boys
The Modern World... Has No Notion Except That Of Simplifying Something By Destroying Nearly Everything.
Simplicity
World
Modern
If An Editor Can Only Make People Angry Enough, They Will Write Half His Newspaper For Him For Nothing.
Writing
Editors
People
Man Is At His Tallest When He Bows.
Faith
Men
Bows
Nine Out Of Ten Of What We Call New Ideas Are Simply Old Mistakes.
Mistake
Ideas
Nine
Gluttony Is A Great Fault; But We Do Not Necessarily Dislike A Glutton. We Only Dislike The Glutton When He Becomes A Gourmet-that Is, We Only Dislike Him When He Not Only Wants The Best For Himself, But Knows What Is Best For Other People.
Food
People
Want
Monotony Has Nothing To Do With A Place; Monotony, Either In Its Sensation Or Its Infliction, Is Simply The Quality Of A Person. There Are No Dreary Sights; There Are Only Dreary Sight Seers.
Sight
Bored
Quality
The Object Of A New Year Is Not That We Should Have A New Year. It Is That We Should Have A New Soul And A New Nose; New Feet, A New Backbone, New Ears, And New Eyes. Unless A Particular Man Made New Year Resolutions, He Would Make No Resolutions. Unless A Man Starts Afresh About Things, He Will Certainly Do Nothing Effective.
Inspirational
New Year
Eye
A Catholic Is A Person Who Has Plucked Up Courage To Face The Incredible And Inconceivable Idea That Something Else May Be Wiser Than He Is.
Ideas
Catholic
May
It Is Generally The Man Who Is Not Ready To Argue, Who Is Ready To Sneer.
Men
Arguing
Apologetic
The Devil's Walking Parody; On All Four-footed Things.
Horse
Devil
Four
The Coziness Between Church And State Is Good For The State And Bad For The Church
Church
States
Church And State
Thoughts On The Merits Of Work The Worst Of Work Nowadays Is What Happens To People When They Cease To Work.
Retirement
People
Merit
None Of The Modern Machines, None Of The Modern Paraphernalia. . . Have Any Power Except Over The People Who Choose To Use Them.
People
Progress
Machines
There Is Nothing Harder To Learn Than Painting And Nothing Which Most People Take Less Trouble About Learning.
Education
People
Painting
If You Convey To A Woman That Something Ought To Be Done, There Is Always A Dreadful Danger That She Will Suddenly Do It.
Done
Danger
Ought
We Do Not Need To Get Good Laws To Restrain Bad People. We Need To Get Good People To Restrain Us From Bad Laws.
Law
People
Needs
Why Are We Not Grateful To God For Filling Our Stockings With Legs?
Christmas
Grateful
Thank You God
If We Desire European Civilization To Be A Raid And A Rescue, We Shall Insist Rather That Souls Are In Real Peril Than That Their Peril Is Ultimately Unreal. And If We Wish To Exalt The Outcast And The Crucified, We Shall Rather Wish To Think That A Veritable God Was Crucified, Rather Than A Mere Sage Or Hero. Above All, If We Wish To Protect The Poor We Shall Be In Favour Of Fixed Rules And Clear Dogmas. The Rules Of A Club Are Occasionally In Favour Of The Poor Member. The Drift Of A Club Is Always In Favour Of The Rich One.
Real
Hero
Thinking
We All Have A Little Weakness, Which Is Very Natural But Rather Misleading, For Supposing That This Epoch Must Be The End Of The World Because It Will Be The End Of Us. How Future Generations Will Get On Without Us Is Indeed, When We Come To Think Of It, Quite A Puzzle. But I Suppose They Will Get On Somehow, And May Possibly Venture To Revise Our Judgments As We Have Revised Earlier Judgments.
Thinking
Civilization
Supposing That
The Test Of Happiness Is Gratitude.
Christian
Gratitude
Tests
The Old Religionist Cried Out For His God. The New Religionist Cries Out For Some God To Be His.
Spirituality
Cry
Cried
A Thing May Be Too Sad To Be Believed Or Too Wicked To Be Believed Or Too Good To Be Believed; But It Cannot Be Too Absurd To Be Believed In This Planet Of Frogs And Elephants, Of Crocodiles And Cuttle-fish.
Animal
Elephants
Wicked
Art Is Limitation; The Essence Of Every Picture Is The Frame. If You Draw A Giraffe, You Must Draw Him With A Long Neck. If In Your Bold Creative Way You Hold Yourself Free To Draw A Giraffe With A Short Neck, You Will Really Find That You Are Not Free To Draw A Giraffe.
Art
Essence
Long
If Prosperity Is Regarded As The Reward Of Virtue It Will Be Regarded As The Symptom Of Virtue.
Rewards
Wealth
Prosperity
The Real Pleasure-seeking Is The Combination Of Luxury And Austerity In Such A Way That The Luxury Can Really Be Felt.
Happiness
Real
Pleasure Seeking
Jokes Are Generally Honest. Complete Solemnity Is Always Dishonest.
Honesty
Honest
Solemnity
Progress Should Mean That We Are Always Changing The World To Fit The Vision, Instead We Are Always Changing The Vision.
Mean
Vision
Progress
When Learned Men Begin To Use Their Reason, Then I Generally Discover That They Haven't Got Any.
Men
Use
Reason
If I Can Put One Touch Of Rosy Sunset Into The Life Of Any Man Or Woman, I Shall Feel That I Have Worked With God.
Motivational
Sunset
Men
Men Can Construct A Science With Very Few Instruments, Or With Very Plain Instruments; But No One On Earth Could Construct A Science With Unreliable Instruments. A Man Might Work Out The Whole Of Mathematics With A Handful Of Pebbles, But Not With A Handful Of Clay Which Was Always Falling Apart Into New Fragments, And Falling Together Into New Combinations. A Man Might Measure Heaven And Earth With A Reed, But Not With A Growing Reed.
Fall
Men
Work Out
Angels Can Fly Because They Take Themselves Lightly. Never Forget That The Devil Fell By Force Of Gravity. He Who Has The Faith Has The Fun.
Fun
Angel
Devil
A Naked Moon Stood In A Naked Sky.
Moon
Sky
Naked
Against A Dark Sky All Flowers Look Like Fireworks. There Is Something Strange About Them, At Once Vivid And Secret, Like Flowers Traced In Fire In The Phantasmal Garden Of A Witch.
Flower
Dark
Garden
Human Anger Is A Higher Thing Than What Is Called Divine Discontent. For You Must Be Angry With Something; But You Can Be Discontented With Everything.
Anger
Divine
Discontent
Our Society Is So Abnormal That The Normal Man Never Dreams Of Having The Normal Occupation Of Looking After His Own Property. When He Chooses A Trade, He Chooses One Of The Ten Thousand Trades That Involve Looking After Other People's Property.
Dream
Men
People
Against A Dark Sky, All Flowers Look Like Fireworks.
Flower
Dark
Sky
The Museum Is Not Meant Either For The Wanderer To See By Accident Or For The Pilgrim To See With Awe. It Is Meant For The Mere Slave Of A Routine Of Self- Education To Stuff Himself With Every Sort Of Incongruous Intellectual Food In One Indigestible Meal.
Museums
Self
Intellectual
Man Must Have Just Enough Faith In Himself To Have Adventures, And Just Enough Doubt Of Himself To Enjoy Them.
Adventure
Men
Doubt
Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.


2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.


2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.


2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.


3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.


3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.


3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.



4. Proper Usage of Quotes


4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.


4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.


4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).


5. Common Mistakes to Avoid


5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.


5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.


5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.



6. Quotes in Different Contexts


6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.


6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.


6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.



7. Punctuation and Formatting


Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:


Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.


Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.


Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.



8. Ethical Considerations


Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes


Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.



Conclusion


Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.


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